Sunday, November 6, 2016

Need a Heavenly Lawyer? Don't Call Saul; Call Jesus

25 Pentecost C  27    November 6, 2016        
Job 19:23-27a   Psalm 17:1-9
2 Thes.2:13-3:5     Luke 20:27-38

Lectionary Link
  In Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, he implored that the union of our country be touched again by the better angels of our nature.  We certainly have seemed to lost the touch of the better angels of our nature in this long presidential campaign which has been so long, it seems to have started in 2012.
  The bad news of democracy, as Churchill said, it is the worst of all forms of government except for all other forms of government that has been tried from time to time.  So, we long to be touched by the better angels of our nature;  but according to the words of Jesus from the Gospel today, we will not achieve our angel nature until the resurrection.  So we have lots to look forward to, even as we pray that we might as a country begin to access our angel nature in our efforts today to work for the common good of all of our citizenry and beyond our borders as a witness to what needs to be angelic in universal behaviors within our world.
  The Bible lessons appointed for our reading today present us with some universal truths of human nature within the details of life situations where they first had a reading and listening audience.  While details of life situations change, the universal truths of human nature remain the same and they are very relevant to our lives today.
  Probably what every person who is born desires at various times is someone who can stand up for them. Each or us needs an advocate.  Even the most talented among us who has great individual gifts, is still not an island.  Each person needs someone else to make our case.  The biblical Job was a very sad man; some terrible things had happened to him.  He in fact lost everything in his life, except his life.  And all of his friends believed that bad things would not happen to good people, and that meant that Job must have done something bad to deserve his misfortune, even if he did not know what it was.
  Job was frustrated with all of the accusations of his friends.  He wanted someone to stand up for him.  He knew he was not perfect but he could not see a one to one correspondence between his harsh punishment and the deeds of his life.  Job was wondering, "Where is my advocate?  Where is my lawyer?  Where is my redeemer?  If I cannot find any person to defend me, I will have faith in God to defend me."  And so we have the great cry of faith by Job, "I know my redeemer lives."  The Hebrew word for redeemer could mean in our setting today an advocate or even lawyer.  I know that I will have someone who will defend me before God's judgment seat and before my friends.  I know that someone will stand up for me.
  The story about Job is the story for all of us; we at times can feel like we do not have enough people who will stand up for us.  Things can happen in our lives which seem unfair or painful.  And we cry out in wonder for the purpose of everything.  Why is all of this happening to me?   The early Christians believed that Jesus Christ was the ultimate advocate, lawyer and Redeemer for humanity.  Why?  Because he identified the divine life completely with the human experience even to the experience of death and he became the perfect human lawyer, advocate and redeemer on behalf of humanity, on behalf of you and me.
  In Jesus, you and I like the proverbial Job can have the faith to confess, "I know that Jesus my Redeemer, my lawyer, and my advocate lives and that he can and will make the case for the purpose of my life in all of its imperfection and in light of everything that has and will happen to me."
  How many of you want to have someone really well connected to stand up for you and to  declare and make the case for the purpose of your life?   And do it for you now and after the end of your earthly life?
  God grant us the faith hold on the ultimate advocate for the purpose of our lives; not the petty goals that we often are consumed with but the great big purpose of our lives, our lives toward God.
  Many of the people of New Testament communities were in apocalyptic communities, like the group of people that Paul wrote to in Thessalonica.  They and Paul believed that a second coming of Jesus would happen soon.  From the internal information of Paul's letters, there were people who were concerned about the fate of some of their friends who had died before Jesus had come again.  What does this tell us?  It tells us that people thought that some significant event was going to happen soon which would end or change all life as it was known.  For people who believe that the world was going to end soon, it does represent something of the selfishness of suffering.  In our suffering we get selfish; why?  because we want our suffering to end soon and if there seems to be no end to suffering, then we might believe that all of life should respond to unjust suffering by just coming to an end.  We think that our suffering should force the hand of God to intervene on our behalf and save the world from all of the misery.  When an entire group of people suffer, they want more than an lawyer or redeemer, they want an intervening military general to come and bring immediate justice.
  Jesus did not come in such an intervening way, so now all of the skeptics of our modern age can mock and make fun of such religious behaviors and religious imaginations about the end of the world.
  Wrong!  Modern and post-modern and irreligious people are more apocalyptic that any early Christians ever were.  People today believe the crash a meteor, a nuclear weapon or environmental conditions could end life as we know it.  We are inundated today with so many imaginary superheroes today who can intervene and force justice and correction in one fell swoop.  The human rage for justice is so profound that we turn to literature, art and cinema to present us quick fixes for the evils of the world.  We are addicted to the two hour solution found in the movies.  The apocalyptic impulse in us today finds some comfort in action adventure stories which give us a quick fix vision.
  What am I saying?  The apocalyptic impulse is human because there is a great wound in freedom.  What is the wound in freedom?  The wound of freedom is that some bad things can happen, not just bad things but some really bad things.  And the everlasting human impulse is to want to heal immediately this terrible wound of freedom when bad things can and do happen.  The wounds of freedom only get healed in subsequent individual events of overcoming evil with good because freedom and time go together.  Evil makes us long for a future of good.
  The New Testament Christians were just like you and me; we always long for the wound in freedom to be healed when it occurs in the devastating events of suffering and injustice.  The details of intervention came for the early Christians in inspired imaginations of a Second Coming of Christ.  Don't make fun of this.  We have many more imaginations of interventions in our culture today.
  Finally, we come to the Gospel reading.  The Gospel exposes another human universal.  What happens to me after I die?  What happens to my friends after they die?  Do only famous people have immortality because they are well-known enough to survive in history books?  What happens to all of the "small" people whose memory may only survive a generation or two to the few people who knew them?  The impulse of immortality was prominent in the theological discussion during the time of Jesus; it is important to us now.  Even though it may not seem important to us at all times, suddenly we lose someone who is very important to us and the loss forces us to desire further relationship and contact with the one we lost.  We begin to lose our life strength; body and mind slow down and we lose the power of our preservation.  And we ponder future preservation.  Will all that we are as a psycho-social-spiritual-physical unity be dissipated as energy that no longer will remain bound together as a personally recognized identity?  Who is our redeemer who will keep our identities alive after we have died?
  The Gospel shows us that some wanted to reduce these deep questions of immortality to an argument between religious parties.  Sadducees did not think that the Torah warranted a belief in the resurrection.  Pharisees believed in a resurrection as proclaimed in the writings of the prophets; such a resurrection which would establish justice.
  The early Christians believed that with the life of Jesus a significant innovation in understanding occurred regarding immortality, the afterlife and the resurrection of the dead.  The foundation of Christianity occurred because significant people received post-resurrection appearances of Christ.  People in the afterlife can only communicate with each other in the language of the afterlife.  When the experience of afterlife is mixed with this life, we can only use images that we know from our own experience or from our own dream experience.
  Jesus and his contemporaries knew about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David.  How did Abraham and Moses continue to live during the time of Jesus?  They lived in the living words of the Scriptures.  But what if the Scriptures were lost and what if there were no people around to read the Scriptures?   Would that mean that Abraham and Moses would cease to exist?  How can Abraham, Moses or anyone survive in memory if any continuing evidence of their existence is erased?  Jesus proclaimed that the God of Moses was a living God and at the very least, a living God would have the best of all possible memory.  And it is that great memory of God which is able to hold together the immortal identities of all people and reconstitute them beyond their physical lives in a glorious and unspeakable way.
  It is okay if skeptics today do not want to believe in their own future identities.  It is okay if they deny that the thought ever occurred to them.  It does not change the fact that each person at times reflect upon a future continued recognized identity of self or significant others beyond this life.
  So we believe that our redeemer God is a God with such a profound preserving memory that the divine memory bytes  are able to reconstitute us to achieve what we don't achieve fully in this live, namely, our angelic natures.
  The Gospel for you and me are the faith issues of knowing a redeemer, an advocate for us before God. Second,  faith in living with the great wound of freedom in seeking the continual intervention of good in the face of evil, and finally knowing that God has the most profound memory of all to guarantee the future identity of everyone beyond this life.
  You may disagree with the details of how these questions were answered in the past, but I do not believe that you and I can avoid these unavoidable features of human experience.  And I am here to tell you that the Gospel of Jesus gives us some very hopeful insights.  Amen.





Friday, November 4, 2016

Sunday School, November 6, 2016 25 Pentecost, C proper 27


Sunday School, November 6, 2016   25 Pentecost, C proper 27, All Saints’ Sunday

Some ideas:

Present this Riddle and get the answer:


As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were there going to St. Ives?

Jesus had a discussion with some other religious people and they gave Jesus a riddle.

Imagine a woman who got married and her husband died.  And because there was an ancient Jewish rule, her husband’s brother was required to marry her.  But imagine that her first husband had six brothers and she had seven husband who died who were all brothers.  The riddle question for Jesus was this:  Jesus, when the woman lives again in the resurrection, which man will be her husband?

This question was asked by people who did not believe in the resurrection or living again in the afterlife.

How did Jesus answer the question?  He said the afterlife is not like this life.  He said that we will be like angels and angels do not get married.

Jesus said that it is more important to believe in God than in ourselves because God is a strong living God and when we die and when others die, we know that we are not great enough to preserve ourselves after we die.  So we believe in a very Great God who is able to preserve, but not just preserve us but make us into our angel-like selves.  In our angel-like selves we will not have the same limitations that we have in our lives now.

The message of Jesus is a message of faith and hope

Why are faith and hope important?

Because we live better when we have faith and hope instead of fear.
If we always are afraid of getting hurt or if we are afraid of death, then we will not be free to try new things and to learn.  Fear makes us too timid to try new things.  Fear makes us sad and it paralyzes us.

When Jesus gave people the hope of the resurrection, this hope allows us to quit being fearful and so we can live our lives in an adventure of faith or always trying to do things to make our lives better.

If we know that we will continue to live after death in an angel-like life, it means that we will still get more time to work on everything that we don’t finish in this life.  And this is hopeful for us.  It can help take away the “fear” of death.  It can help us know that God is fair to all people who don’t get to live as long as some other people because of accidents and misfortune.
The resurrection allows us to believe in fairness.  There will be plenty of time for everything to be made fair.

So Jesus showed us that everlasting life will bring about fairness and because we know this we can live with faith.

The people who argued with Jesus only wanted to win an argument.  Jesus was interested in giving people hope for the future so that they live with faith and adventure now in their lives.



Discussion:

What happens to you when you live in fear?
What happens when you are hopeful about good things?

Talk about the difference between living with fear and living with hope.

Sermon

  Can you and I know everything there is to know in life?  No.  Would we like to know everything?  Yes.  But why can’t we know everything?  We are too small.  Our minds, our brains cannot collect and remember all of the information.  And we cannot know some things because of who we are.  I know how to be a father, but I don’t know how to be a mother.  Why, because I can never be a mother.  So there are some things that I can never know.
  So I have to rely upon other people knowing what being a mother is.  Since there is so much to know, I have to rely on other people to know some things that I don’t know.  I have to rely upon a mechanic to fix my car.  I have to rely upon the doctor to take care of my health.  I have to rely upon many different teachers who know many different things.  I have to rely upon people who know more about music than I do.
  And when we add up everything that all people in the world know, do people still know everything?  No we still don’t know about distance stars and planets that we have never seen.  So there are still many,
many things that we do not know.  
  Why is every thing knowable?  Because we believe that God is knowledge and truth and life itself.  And God’s life is bigger and greater than our lives, so we always have more to learn about in life because God is so big and great.
  One of the things that we do not have a lot of information about is about what happens to people after they die.  And that is important for us because we want to know that the important people in our life are going to be with us forever.
  Jesus had a discussion with some people about what happens after we die.  And what Jesus says is this:  Since God lives and since God is the God of the living, all people will always live on in God.  Why?  Because God’s life is so great that God can preserve everything and everyone in a very special way.
  So if you ever begin to think about what’s after life, just remember how big God is and remember that God is big enough to preserve and keep everyone and everything that was ever made, even though we
may always be able to see everyone and everything.  God is a God of the living.  So all people will always live in God.  And so will you and I and so will all of the important people in your life.  Doesn’t that make you happy.  Remember that God is a living God and all of us live in God.  Amen.


St. John the Divine Episcopal Church
17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Family Service with Holy Eucharist
November 6, 2016: The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
All Saints’ Sunday

Gathering Songs: Alleluia, Give Thanks; I Am the Bread of Life; The King of Glory 

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: Alleluia, Give Thanks   (Blue Hymnal # 178)
Refrain: Alleluia, alleluia, give thanks to the risen Lord.  Alleluia, alleluia give praise to his name.
Jesus is Lord of all the earth.  He is the King of creation.  Refrain
Spread the good news o’er all the earth: Jesus has died and has risen.  Refrain

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.
People:            And also with you.

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

Litany of Praise: 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

A reading from the Second Letter to the Thessalonians

But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.  Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 17

I call upon you, O God, for you will answer me; * incline your ear to me and hear my words.
Show me your marvelous loving-kindness, * O Savior of those who take refuge at your right hand
from those who rise up against them.
Keep me as the apple of your eye; * hide me under the shadow of your wings,
.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God!

Litanist:
For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!
For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!
For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!
For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!
For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!
For work and for play. Thanks be to God!
For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!
For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!
For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.
   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke
People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her." Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.
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 Song: I Am the Bread of Life (Blue Hymnal, # 335)
I am the bread of life; they who come to me shall not hunger; they who believe in me shall not thirst.  No one can come to me unless the Father draw them. 
Refrain: And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will raise them up on the last day.
I am the resurrection, I am the life.  They who believe in me, even if they die, they shall live for ever.  Refrain
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of 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 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 and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

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

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory
 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

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

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)
Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.
Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

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

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.
But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

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

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

Breaking of the Bread
Celebrant:       Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.

Words of Administration

Communion Song:   I Come With Joy   (Renew! # 195)
1.         I come with joy a child of God, forgiven, loved, and free, the life of Jesus to recall, in love laid down for me.
2.         I come with Christians, far and near to find, as all are fed, the new community of love in Christ’s communion bread.
3.         As Christ breaks bread, and bids us share, each proud division ends.  The love that made us makes us one, and strangers now are friends.

Post-Communion Prayer
Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;
We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.
And His Presence has been known to us.
We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers
    and sisters in Christ.
Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the
     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,
As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.


Closing Song: The King of Glory (Renew! # 267)

Refrain: The king of glory comes the nation rejoices.  Open the gates before him, lift up your voices.

Who is the king of glory, how shall we call him?  He is Emmanuel, the promised of ages.   Refrain
In all of Galilee, in city or village, he goes among his people curing their illness.  Refrain
Sing then of David’s son, our Savior and brother; in all of Galilee was never another. Refrain

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.
People: Thanks be to God! 


Monday, October 31, 2016

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween


Please don't let people de-Christianize your observance of "All Hallows' Eve," the eve of All Hallows' Day=All Saints' Day. It begins a Triduum of All Hallow's Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls' Day. Christianity came to places that already had observances of traditions of entrance to the afterlife and relationship with inhabitants of the afterlife. Christianity offered the transitional explanation of the resurrection to the afterlife into a Communion of Saints with the ribbon of hope tying together the living and the dead. Some of the dead became famous beyond their locations and entered the "Christian Hall of Fame" and are designated as superhero saints. So we have the Christian Hall of Fame day of All Saints' Day. Most people are influenced by some very local saints, moms, dads, grandparents, teachers, mentors and so we have on November 2nd, All Souls' Day, to remember those who have made the Gospel evident to our own lives.


Have fun with Harry Potter costumes and superhero costumes and chocolates (in moderation???) on this day and use it as a teaching day to express the resurrection faith of Christianity regarding the end of one's life and the lives of others and how the Communion of the living and the dead testifies to God's preserving great memory.

Don't let the curmudgeons or those who seem to be more interested in finding spooky Satanic signs everywhere keep you from observing the resurrection significance of these three days.
 


Aphorism of the Day, October 2016

Aphorism of the Day, October 31, 2016

Did it ever occur to us that Christian focus upon the afterlife seems to be a contradiction of the serenity prayer? "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."  The New Testament writers seem taken up with the afterlife and the impending end of the world as we know it, so how were they using courage to change the things they could change?  Can anyone change one's death or one's afterlife.  How does one accept death and not presume to know too much about the specifics of the afterlife state of being?  The things that we can change pertain how you and I will enter the afterlife.  We can change the quality of our life before we die and from that quality assume the best kind of continuity in how we get preserved in God's memory which we hope includes a reconstitution and a continuous recycling towards excellence of Personal life force.


 Aphorism of the Day, October 30, 2016

The Gospel present the opponents of Jesus as one who hung out with "sinners."  All Gentiles were sinners in that they were ritually impure and defiled people.  Also, the Jews  who were not ritually observant according to the practice of the prominent religious parties were also "sinners."  The Gospels expanded the meaning of "sinner" to all people and is a positive notion because it implied that human beings were imperfect but perfectible.  Imperfect people need to be on a path of repentance.  Repentance is simply the progressive education program in excellence which involves tolerating oneself in the state of being imperfect because of God's perfect grace.  It involves a vision of being so much better that one cannot judge others excepts as others who are trying to deal with their own path of perfectability in equal need of grace.

Aphorism of the Day, October 29, 2016

The 12 step program includes the notion of reparation as a way of rebuilding one's credibility in recovery.  The conversion of Zacchaeus inspired him to pay reparations with interest all whom he had cheated.  Reparation is a way to rewrite the history of the past through a post-humus generosity to the dead past of one's own unjust behaviors.  Generosity of reparation can actually be a form of resurrection.

Aphorism of the Day, October 28, 2016

Zacchaeus is the Saint of Stewardship.  He proved that an encounter with Jesus will change your relationship to your money.

Aphorism of the Day, October 27, 2016

UFOologist developed the classification system of "close encounters" with alien life.  Bible writers encode their system of classification of close encounters with the "alien" life of God.  New Testament writers encode their classification of "close encounters" with the "alien life" of the Risen Christ.  Frankly, all encounters are constituted by what makes visible the invisible, name Word and language.  We know all encounters in life because we first have language.  Once we have language we bring all experience into existence.

Aphorism of the Day, October 26, 2016

The Zacchaeus story recounts the serendipitous events of how he went from being a Jesus watcher from afar to becoming a disciple whose life was radically changed from an intimate encounter with Jesus in his own home.  The Zacchaeus story in the Gospel is an announcement to all that having one's life changed by an encounter with Jesus has happened, may happened, will happen to anyone and it will not be exactly like with Zacchaeus because the Risen Christ through the Spirit morphs into the context specifics of anyone who can confess such an encounter.

Aphorism of the Day, October 25, 2016

The Zacchaeus story in the Gospel encapsulates features of the "Gospel seduction" within the early churches.  Zacchaeus, a liminal person stuck by the choices of his profession between being a Jew and working for the Romans, is curious about Jesus from afar.  Zacchaeus is made to feel chosen when Jesus invites himself into Zacchaeus' life.  Jesus visits the home of Zacchaeus and his entire lifestyle is converted: he pays reparations for his over-charging and becomes a generous steward.

Aphorism of the Day, October 24, 2016

The writer of Luke has a "thing" for publicans or tax-collectors.  Perhaps it is because they represent the liminal nature of the early church.  Tax-collectors were often non-observant Jews who in the Gospel were shown as people who wanted to have some "faith" status.  The early Jesus Movement must have embraced these liminal figures on its way to becoming a mostly Gentile community.

 Aphorism of the Day, October 23, 2016

Sin and being a sinner can be designated in different ways.  A sinner can be a person who does not know the rules I follow and so is different from me and undesirable because my lifestyle rules are inaccessible to such a one and so he is a "sinner" or one outside of my lifestyle rules.  A sinner can be one who willfully and purposely does things that violates rules of safety, health and well being of self and others.  Or sinner can be a positive state into which all people are born.  We are born in the human condition with future states of excellence that we are not yet attaining.  Those states of excellence invite us to grow continually in their direction.  The New Testament word for sin is an archery term meaning to "miss the mark," or to fall short of the target.  This is the perpetual human condition since future excellence, no matter what our state of practice is now, is always a future target at which we will continually aim.  As we define a current excellent target and then attain it, in attaining it, it will be further revealed that another future target exposes the inadequacy of what we have attained.  This is the nature of learning.  Future excellence should always keep us humble about what we have attained and certainly not qualified to judge others who are on other archery ranges in quest of their own targets at their own rates of growth in the life process of spiritual archery.

Aphorism of the Day, October 22, 2016

The New Testament redefines sinner from being but a "ritually" non-observant person to being the state of being imperfect.  The positive notion of being a sinner is that the admission of sin means also that one is perfectible.  The notions of grace, mercy and forgiveness is that God's perfection is shared with the sinner and so each sinner has the freedom to accept a substitutionary perfection with God, so each person can say, "I'm perfect with God."  Perfection is the wholeness that one accepts by acknowledging being made complete by God's grace.

Aphorism of the Day, October 21, 2016

"God be merciful to me a sinner."  Failed archers of the world unite!  The New Testament world for sin is to fail as an archer to hit the target.  So sin can be a positive notion, if the target one is aiming at is the continuously elusive perfection of God.  Oops.  I missed again but I going to keep shooting my arrows of intentional life deeds toward the excellence which God requires.  One can create all sorts of arbitrary targets to shoot out and achieve, e.g., not eating anymore broccoli, and be proud of achieving such "easy" targets.  One can judge others for not attaining the easy targets attained in one's own life.  But in the game of Ultimate Archery, one's target is the moving target of God's perfection at which one is always aiming and always failing and yet always improving because shooting in the direction of perfection is how we get better.  And always missing perfection is how we remain as those who have humble reasons for not judging others who have their own history of "archery" experience.

Aphorism of the Day, October 20, 2016

The panning of religious leaders by Jesus including a parable of comparing favorably the repentant publican with a Pharisee characterized as a "self righteous" prig is indicative of the polemic of the early church in its separation "anxiety" from the synagogue.  The early Christian leaders had two shocks:  Gentiles were drawn to the message of Jesus and most members of the traditional parties of Judaism were not.  So Christianity dismissed the ritual purity codes of Judaism to conform to Gentile Christianity.  This scenario forms the ethos of those who generated the writings of the New Testament.  Today, we need not identify with the polemic which so informed the separation of synagogue and church.

Aphorism of the Day, October 19, 2016

The negative side of the "insight of sin" is to have the prideful attitude of thinking that one does not have significant sin or judging others for having obviously worse sins than one's own.  The positive side of sin is to compare oneself with one future surpassable self in excellence and humbly acknowledge how much more one has to attain that one requests mercy from God and God's patience to allow one to continue to maintain in the life journey of self-surpassability in excellence.  The best insight of sin is to compare oneself with oneself and hope for self-surpassability in holiness in the future.

Aphorism of the Day, October 18, 2016

"God be merciful to me a sinner."  The realization of sin is a very positive realization since it means that one subscribes to the view of human perfectability, with God's mercy tolerating us and completing us when we are not yet perfect.  Perfection then is not an individual quest; it is acceptance of perfection as "wholeness" because we live and move and have our being in God.  And an experience within the Holy Ground of God is mercy.

Aphorism of the Day, October 17, 2016

"God be merciful to me a sinner."  Knowing that one is a sinner is a positive notion in the Gospel.  It means that one realizes that one has not yet attained the more perfect moral targets where one is aiming.  Knowing that one is a sinner is the realization that one is "in time."  Being "in time" we cannot claim some "static laurels" and judge ourselves as somehow better than others forever.  Being "in time" we are invited to the humility of anticipation for future excellent performance.

Aphorism of the Day, October 16, 2016

When things happen to us we tend to take them personally.  We may think that God has blessed us or that God or some other agents is punishing us.  The Greek personified fate as the Moirai; those divine personal metaphors of destiny.  In the Gospel parable of the nagging widow and the judge, the judge represents the personification of the negative probable outcomes which happen in a true system of freedom.  All of us have to learn to live in relationship with this judge, the by product of freedom, and when the negative outcomes express deprivation of health, goodness and justice, we need to become the holy naggers who pray continuously for the normalcy of justice, goodness, health and kindness.  Such nagging is the free expression of faith geared to help tilt the balance toward justice in the overall environment of real freedom and real possibilities.

Aphorism of the Day, October 15, 2016

Consider the nagging prayers of faith in the face of injustice.  Conceive of Reality as a quantity of interacting and mutual occasions.  Consider in a free system of interacting occasions the ability for certain qualitative occasions to reach the tipping point of majority such that the qualitative majority begins to tilt the whole in its favor.  Adding up the qualitative prayers and actions of faith within the Total Milieu of all occasions means that hopeful outcomes can be effected.  When the Son of Man comes will he find faith?  God is luring and coaxing us to tip the majority toward just outcomes.  Let us prevail in nagging prayers against injustice.  Our prayerful "votes of faith" count in the eventual outcomes.

Aphorism of the Day, October 14, 2016

Why is the nagging prayer of faith important within the freedom of injustice being a persistent reality of life?  If injustice is an expression of freedom, faith and prayerful faith is also a persistent freedom.  It is almost like Jesus is suggesting that when a majority of occasions of faithful prayer makes injustice a minority, then injustice must respond to the events of faith overcoming it.  In a system of Freedom, it is important to cast many votes of faith to attain the majority over the freedom of injustice to prevail.

Aphorism of the Day, October 13, 2016

When the Son of Man come, will he find faith?  The presence of injustice and the uneven distribution of luck and misfortune throughout the world can result in people not having faith.  Injustice and oppression can be reason not to have faith.  Conversely, if one lives in the lap of luxury one might not have faith because such easy comfort does not require the growth of any "faith muscles."  Cynicism and anger about how unfair life is and entitlement make be threatening circumstances for living with faith.  Faith is the attitude of inner contentment which rests upon a vision of hope inspiring positive actions in the "now."  Though each person needs to have faith, faith necessarily has collateral salutary effects for one's community.

Aphorism of the Day, October 12, 2016

The freedom of an infinite number of things, events and occasions happening always, already in the now means that our lives can experience things which are beyond our direct control and sometimes the "fate" of things beyond our direct control can be experienced by us as injustice particularly if we believe that other personally directed forces are against our well-being.  Prayer is how we use our language to relate to the ultimate Freedom that we live in.  Can we still believe ultimate Freedom is a Divine Being which honors us by letting human worth be authenticated by participation in this freedom?  Or because there can seem to be an uneven distribution of the events of negative events of freedom, do many decry Freedom as a Fatal Determining Being who seems to have favorites for no reason at all?  Prayer is a language of faith of us constituting ourselves and responding to what is happening to us, even as we know we are not exempt from uneven distributions of the weals and woes of what can happen.  The reason prayer as faith discourse is important is that it is a talking cure to adjust us to the reality of what is and that adjustment is not just passive paralysis but hopeful response in the best way given the limitations of the situation.  Lots of people are crushed in bitterness by not knowing or seeking the recipe for lemonade.

Aphorism of the Day, October 11, 2016

The parable of the persistent widow presents prayer as holy nagging.  There is an entire book which consists of lots of "nagging prayer" about how unfair life is.  It called the book of Psalms.  Prayer as holy nagging is perhaps psychologically healthy; God as the very big ear Therapist listening to endless nagging about how life is unfair to me.  God as the Therapist on the other side of our "talking cure prayers" is probably good for social health since God is big enough to take our nagging and our nagging does not do much for relationship with family, friends and colleagues.  So let it all out; the Sigmund Divine is ever attending and saying, "uh-huh, and how did that make you feel?"

Aphorism of the Day, October 10, 2016

"Life is not fair."  This experience was illustrated in the parable of the widow who continually pleads to a judge for justice.  It could be that the only way that life is fair is to say that freedom is fair, freedom is just.  Freedom is perhaps the most awesome justice since the free conditions of the world involve people being inhumane with each other and often in harm's way to the terrors of natural events.  Freedom assumes time and change and if justice is conceived as a "static" final state, it is incompatible with freedom.  Great notions like love and justice need to be explicated within the condition of freedom because human beings cannot rest upon the past events of love and justice; they are continually beckoned to the present and future of love and justice within the conditions of freedom.

Aphorism of the Day, October 9, 2016

The conditions of change in the world means that states of being are continually in flux and crucial events of change are marked in language with words such as birth, sickness, recovery and death.  How can life be regarded as healthy in the midst of the changes which are always already inevitable?   Faith is the expression of being well, being healthy, being "saved" within the conditions of time=change.  There is an unrealistic notion of health and wellness which denies time and change; a holding onto a "static state of perpetual comfort" as the condition of health.  Jesus said, "Your faith has made you well."  The leper had faith when he was a leper and when he was not one so faith is the "wellness" which embraces all conditions of life.  The proverbial Job was "well" with faith, even when all appearances of health and fortune were missing. 

Aphorism of the Day, October 8, 2016

For Jesus in the Gospel, being "well" means having faith.  The diverse conditions of "health" befall us all in very uneven ways.  It is wrong to just present Jesus as one who heals or cures and makes us all better.  If healing was permanent, we would never die.  This is why we need to look to the Gospel teaching of having faith as the condition of being "well."  People with terminal illnesses can still be well.  Another Gospel teaching of Jesus about being well is the active faith of the community in including all people with welcome and care.  Community faith and community wellness means that we include with care all people in need.


Aphorism of the Day, October 7, 2016

The mention of Samaria and Samaritans in the Luke-Acts writings probably means that early churches included Samaritan members and church gatherings could be found in Samaria.  The Gospels as a storied presentation of the life of Jesus to mirror the practices of the early churches means that there is an origin discourse for the encounter of Samaritans with Jesus Christ.  Writing Samaritan acceptance of Jesus into the Gospel narrative would express the living oracle of the Risen Christ encountering the Samaritans who actually claimed to have a traditional "Israel" lineage dating from the time of Joshua.  The Samaritans in the New Testament are an indication that the Gospel of Christ was appealing to a variety of sects and groups, including Zealots, Pharisees, followers of John the Baptist and Sadducees, plus the Gentiles.  Ironically, a Samaritan convert to Christ and a Jewish follower of Christ could say in healing of their ancient division, "In Christ, there is no Jew or Samaritan."

Aphorism of the Day, October 6, 2016

Jesus said to the thankful Samaritan leper who was healed: "Your faith has made you well."  This encoded the notion of salvation wellness in the early churches.  This was contrasted with the notion of physical and spiritual health being the condition of being certified by the authorities in the classification system of the purity code in Judaism.  St. Paul proclaimed that Samaritan and Gentiles could have Abrahamic faith which is what made them well, i.e. saved and acceptable by God.  Gentile Christian "wellness" challenged the exclusive system of the purity code for determining salvation wellness.

Aphorism of the Day, October 5, 2016

Under the ritual purity codes, a leper was "unclean" and thus quarantined from society.  The ritual purity code functioned as a religious public health taxonomical system.  The public needs to be "protected."  It is a valid impulse except one of the outcomes was the loss of access of "ritually impure" people to the health of the community.  The healing Jesus was first of a person who violated quarantine rules and in his state of healthiness he welcomed those who had been unwelcomed due to the quarantine.  Health is not just about a physical "cure;" it is about health as a caring community.

Aphorism of the Day, October 4, 2016

The Gospel stories about Jesus actually encode the dynamics of what was happening in the early churches.  10 lepers were healed by Jesus; only the "foreign" leper returned to say thanks to Jesus.  The "foreigners" in the church were ritually impure and segregated from the synagogue and yet these "foreigners" were thanking Jesus for making them clean and pure and acceptable to be included in the fold of God.  The ritual meal in the inclusive churches was called "Eucharist" which means "thanksgiving."

Aphorism of the Day, October 3, 2016

The most blatant anachronism of the Gospel writers is the embedding of the Gentile  Christianity within the narrative of the life of Jesus.  How do the writers artfully try to be true to the Jewishness of Jesus in his own time and yet include in this presentation the subtle suggestion that Jesus was already reaching out to the Gentiles?  The writing purpose of the early Christian writers in the way they presented Jesus vis a vis foreigners has to be included in what is regarded to be "inspired."  The Gentile mission "inspired" the presentation of the narrative of Jesus in the Gospels.

Aphorism of the Day, October 2, 2016

When the disciple requested of Jesus, "Increase our faith,"  he essentially said, "Do it yourself."  Do it through small individual deeds of faith which collect to become the "increase" of faith that is so desired.  There is no easy way for faith to become the character of our lives; we have to practice it so that the quantity of actual faithful deeds result in being the character of our lives and in the uncanny results which can happen because of sustained faithfulness.

Aphorism of the Day, October 1, 2016

Increase our  faith."  The classical Greek word "pistos" was the goal of rhetoric.  "Pistos" means persuasion.  Fast forward to the koine Greek of the New Testament and "pistos" means "faith."  So what is the relationship between persuasion and faith?  Faith is the expression of the constituting motivation of one's life which expresses the degree of persuasion toward the motivating focus.  In the Christian community faith was the cumulative constituting faith acts motivated by the hopeful belief in God in Christ such that an undivided persuaded person attained the character of faith to achieve the uncanny results of faith.

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